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A while back Techcrunch UK suggested that News Corporation might be looking into acquiring LinkedIn.  However, Reuters is now reporting that this is not the case: “Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is not holding takeover discussions with LinkedIn, a fast-growing online social network for professionals, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday.”

The Reuters report did say, though, that News Corp and LinkedIn were discussing possible future partnerships.  Techcrunch’s Duncan Riley suggests that “with the Dow Jones (Wall Street Journal) acquisition being finalized a partnership between News Corp and LinkedIn would make a lot of sense; the premium business sites from Dow Jones provide a high-wealth business focused demographic that would sit well with LinkedIn’s business networking product.”

Mike Masnick, of Techdirt, has a different view on the occurrence, however.  He suggests that LinkedIn may be employing the “Skype Hype Strategy,” which goes like this: get some publicity for your site by leaking rumors of an acquisition, deny that there’s any such acquisition in progress, then get one of your execs to say something like, “We couldn’t possibly sell for less than $1 billion,” enter buyout offers.  He then parallels this strategy with what LinkedIn has been doing: last week the rumor mill was working the story that News Corp wanted to buy LinkedIn, and then LinkedIn denies the claim while the CEO announces that any such deal would have to be “a lot more than a billion dollars.”  Is Masnick right?  Is this just a move by LinkedIn to build up hype and get a killer buyout offer?

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